Garwood, of course, stayed to that unclassified meal which is served on Sunday evenings. The repast which Emily in the absence of the servants laid herself, was without formality, and the girl artfully contrived to hide from him the extra preparation that was represented by the bowl of salad she brought forth and set in the midst of the white linen and all the glitter of the table service. Garwood and Mr. Harkness talked of men’s topics during the meal and Emily was silent with the silence of the woman in her serving, though her eyes gleamed at the comradeship she thought she recognized in the two men. She did not know how thoroughly the real thought of each man was with her, though Garwood from time to time reflected on the comparison that might be made between the plainness of his mother’s table on Sunday evenings and the elegance of the one at which he now expanded himself.
It was late when he went home that night. As he left he told Emily, in their lengthened farewells, that it had been the happiest Sunday he had ever known.
XVIII
EVERYWHERE the campaign was closing, as the newspapers said, in a blaze of glory.
From their headquarters in New York the managers of the two great parties were issuing their last impossible claims, their last careful instructions, their last solemn warnings. Partisan hatred raged in every hamlet in the land, and the whole nation was given over to the last passion of its quadrennial tragedy of personal ambitions.
Down in the Thirteenth Congressional District of Illinois, Garwood was making his final tour of the seven counties, speaking many times daily. He was disheveled and bedraggled, he went without shaving, without sleeping, much of the time without food. He had turned into a mere smiling automaton, that could drink, talk in a husky voice, and go on and on. Insensible to bodily fatigue and discomfort, his only physical sensation was a constant longing for tobacco, and he smoked all the time.
At home, Rankin had finished all his plans. He had completed a second poll, which he had had taken by school districts, and the thousand dollars Garwood had given him on the Monday morning before starting on his final campaigning tour he was hoarding for election day. His own confidence was such that, when Mr. Harkness, in the interest he could not conceal, one day asked about the outlook, he was able to say:
“We’re all right if they don’t buy us.”
Rankin had determined that Garwood’s campaign should close with a splendid spectacle of fire in his home town. He had roused the county committee to a frenzy of action, he had compelled the candidates on the county ticket to make one final contribution to the campaign fund, and as Garwood’s share of the great meeting Rankin engaged a band, and kept this action so constantly before his fellow-committeemen that their own efforts seemed paltry and puny in comparison with his. When the last Sunday night came, and but one more day remained, he said to his sleepy wife as he came home far in the chill hours of the morning: